Tuesday, 7 August 2012

The original British surf mag

This is one of the holy grails of our surfing history, Surfing UK was officially our first surfing magazine ; just think of how many hundreds/ thousands of UK surf mags have followed since these pioneering issues in 1969 ! Rare as anything ; you still see lots of 1969 boards but not the mags ! Thanks to Tony Cope for lending this one and remembering the history of the mag below-.

`Surfing UK`was produced by Lindsay Morgan in Porthcawl, Wales, and sold in most
surfside towns around the UK.

Issue 1, Jan. 1969 was a few typed sheets stapled
together and it`s thought no copies still survive. Issue 2 ( shown here ) was
printed as a newspaper 3 months later and contains photos and adverts…… a
professional product.

Only 3 issues were made and sold before S.UK.
folded, due to poor sales and lack of content, and insufficient paying adverts
to help cover printing costs.It was
simply before it`s time, as were :

`British Surfer` ( 1969 – 70 ),6 issues only, and

`Surf Insight`(1972 - 73 ),4 issues only

Overcrowding problems even then.
Comparing British Surfer no1 and Surfing UK they are quite different, although both made in Wales. BS no1 is almost completely about Welsh surfers, and didn't branch out to English, Irish and Scottish surfing till later issues when Rod Sumpter took over as editor. Surfing UK from the start covers a lot of South west surf, which I find a lot more interesting with focus on Gwithian, St Ives and Porthtowan, as well as Devon and Wales.

Roger Brooks at Gwithian

Chris Tyler, owner of Skewjack and Penzance's John Adams (3sss films) at Porthmeor

Acorn surfboards, Swansea

Keith Paull, influential Australian champion on his Bing foil at Porthtowan 1968.